Often we are led to believe that major historical events happen by accident, but sometimes a pattern of events reveals something more than mere coincidence. And when it comes to big wars, there seems to be one particularly notable “coincidence.”
Before Bill Clinton, only four Democratic presidents since 1900 had served more than one term in office: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. Each of them initiated American involvement in the four major wars of this century: World War I World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.
Four presidents. Four wars. Total American dead: 616,000.
Over the years, various Republicans have been ridiculed for noting this Democrat-war connection. But those Republicans had a point. During the first 92 years of this century, there were five multi-term Republican presidents, and Republicans held the White House for a total of 56 years, or 61% of that period. Not one of them started a major war (as measured by the number of Americans killed). Is there in fact something about Democrats that makes them more likely to start wars? Of course, there is.
The most important common trait is that all these Democrats had the support of and were beholden to powerful internationals. These internationals were on record as desiring war, for the purpose of creating in America a climate favorable toward world government. Thus, following the tragedy of America’s involvement in World War I, Woodrow (“He Kept Us Out of War”) Wilson proposed the League of Nations–the first effort to press our country into world government. And all thorough the 1940’s the Roosevelt Administration promoted the idea of the United Nations. Wars always seem to promote the agenda of those who preach that only through international government can wars be averted.
Next, all four-war leaders shared a belief in centralized rule and the aggressive use of executive power. So it is not surprising that Woodrow Wilson, who enacted the federal income tax and created the Federal Reserve System, also promoted the Great War’s grand crusade for democracy. And FDR, who radically extended federal power and cynically tried to pack the Supreme Court, is now known to have seen World War II as a means to end the nation’s economic problems. FDR also most likely allowed America to be “surprised” by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, in order to rouse a public that was anti-war.
Then came Harry Truman, who fought for wage, price, and rent controls. He allowed our military to fall into disrepair, despite a clear communist threat from the Soviet Union and China. Truman seemed surprised by North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950. And Lyndon Johnson, who rammed his expansive Great Society, program through Congress in 1964-65, simultaneously increased and micromanaged American military involvement in Vietnam.
These same internationalists have in recent decades backed Republicans. Republican wars in the 20th century have killed far fewer Americans (witness the Gulf War, where American deaths were measured in the hundreds). However, the deaths of Iraqi civilians and the brutality of that war were comparable to anything the Democrats could have dreamed up.
And Republicans seem to be masters of embargo and sanctions that simply starve other countries into submission. The last two Republican administrations have bombed Libya, Grenada, Panama and Iraq, with enormous unjustifiable loss of human life. There actually may have been a difference in the parties at one time. More recent Republican administrations, however, have been every bit as much under the influence and control of Internationals Warmakers as have been the Democrats.
The Founders understood that dictators by their very nature make war. How right they were.